[Feliks Karol Koneczny - academic career path].

Abstract

Feliks Koneczny's ideas in history and philosophy of history are well-known in today's
world. Since the 1990s many researchers have devoted their interests and studies to
that very matter. They have written a lot about the issue. Yet there hasn't been even
one thorough biography of that outstanding scholar based on an in-depth archival query.
It was the author's research conducted in national and foreign archives, that finally
provided the answer to the hitherto unexplained, mysteries concerning Feliks Koneczny.
Feliks Koneczny (1862-1949) graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy at the Jagiellonian
University in Cracow and began work as an office senior lecturer at the Academy of
Arts and Sciences; since 1897, he worked at the Jagiellonian Library. After Poland
regained its independence, he became an assistant professor in 1919. In June 1920,
after he had qualified received the degree of doctor habilitatus, he became a professor
of the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius. After having retired in 1929, he came
back to Cracow. His interests moved from purely historical research to the philosophy
of history, religion and philosophy. During the Second World War his two sons were
killed by the Nazis, and part of his house was occupied by German co-tenants. His
pioneering works dealing with the history of Russia. As well as his theory the evolution
of civilizations are among his greatest achievements. Foreign researchers and scholars,
among them Anton Hilckman, Arnold Toynbee and Samuel Huntington widely draw upon Feliks
Koneczny's works and achievements. In 1948, after sixty years of research work Koneczny
calculated that his written scholarly output encompassed 26 volumes, each of them
being 300 to 400 pages long, not to mention more than 300 articles, brochures and
reprints. Although a lot of Polish scholars can boast of having completed more works
than he had not many Polish historians can prode themselves on such an enormous scape
of research, which included anthropology, sociology, philosophy, theology, ethnology,
psychology, economics, history and law. This list, impressive as it may be, fails
to do justice to the moral and personal dimension of his work. This loner by choice
was the creator of Polish philosophy of history, a major Catholic thinker, a university
professor and humanist in the most significant sense of the word.